


A's On a Plane

by soupypictures



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupypictures/pseuds/soupypictures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Oakland A's on a cross-country flight. 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A's On a Plane

**Author's Note:**

> Last season the A's played in Boston and then had to fly home for a game the next day. It seemed kind of unfair, and was one in a string of bad scheduling situations. Here is what I began writing to document that flight. I gave up on it, and if you squint you can see some nascent Donaldson/Gray or Donaldson/Reddick.

“This is fucking torture,” Josh Donaldson spits out, shoving his bag underneath the seat in front of him. He takes the window seat so he doesn’t fall asleep with his head on his seatmate’s shoulder. _Because that’s gay,_ he thinks. Then he imagines what Sean Doolittle would say or do if he’d said that out loud and rolls his eyes as Doolittle walks down the aisle.

“The fuck’s your problem?” the lefty asks, taking his customary seat over the starboard wing, one row behind where Josh has parked his ass. There is no ire in his tone; he’s a casual curser, now just blinking at Josh in confusion.

“I can’t even think without you correcting my ideas.”

Doolittle grins and Jed Lowrie fist-bumps him on his way to the back of the plane.

“That’s exactly the effect I want to have. Living in your brain.”

Josh bitches quietly to himself about parasites as Sonny Gray boards the plane, pushing the getaway day dress code with his flipflops and cuffed charcoal slacks.

 _Holy shit, charcoal? Is that a color? Should I know that?_ “Sonny boy, lose your shoes?” is what he ends up saying, playing it cool because _why,_ he doesn’t know. There’s a little something about Sonny that sets him on edge, maybe the same something Billy Beane has.

Fuuuuuck.

Sonny grins and waggles his eyebrows at Josh before plopping himself down in the aisle seat of the third baseman’s row. “Actually, yeah. I think I left them under the bed at the hotel.”

“You fucker, you’re gonna ‘find’ them in your bags once you get home.”

Sonny shrugs but his eyes are twinkling and Josh thinks, _What the fuck._ He smiles back. 

They chat about the game for a hot minute while the rest of the team files onto the plane. Sonny groans – loudly – when Daric Barton chooses the row directly in front of them, presumably because the first baseman is known for conking out immediately on every flight and snoring – loudly – for its entirety. 

Dan Otero is the last to board the plane, his phone held up to his ear while his wife gives him updates on the ear infection the baby’s been battling for a week. Doolittle is looking up at him expectantly. Otero’s shoulders slump a little as he heads to the row behind Josh knowing that he’s been tagged as the recipient of Doolittle’s most recent history lesson.

They’re in the air within twenty minutes and Josh thumbs through his Twitter feed, thankful for on-board wifi. He catches Josh Reddick’s emoji tweet:  
  
and says, without thinking, “Is that one plane for every thousand fucking miles we have to fly?”

“I’m impressed with your geography skills, Josh,” Lowrie says drily from his spot in the back and Josh gives him a friendly one-fingered salute over the seats.

“No, it’s one plane for every time on this flight we want to throw you out the exit door.”

“Hey hey hey, no need to be so pissy, Redd. You’ve been acting like a little bitch lately--”

Brandon Moss chuckles and throws his arm across the aisle to prevent anyone from the back of the plane from advancing up the aisle. “Whoa, let’s hold up right there, cowboy.”

“The fuck’s your problem, Donaldson--”

Doolittle interrupts their exchange. “The tension is _killing_ me,” he says, and both Joshes sit down and shut up, knowing exactly where that one’s going. Josh Donaldson rolls his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a transcript of the conversation which led to this.
> 
> oakland a's on the plane
> 
> why the fuq do we play @ boston then at home. the league really does hate us.
> 
> redd tweeted airplane emojis. just three airplane emojis.
> 
> haha. makes sense. each one signifying 1000 miles.
> 
> or time zone.
> 
> or number of times they want to throw donaldson out the exit door. but they remember he’s a 6 war guy.
> 
> aww why the noodles hate???
> 
> hahaha. he just seems like he’d annoy people in a 5.5 hour flight. i’m open to other suggestions tho.
> 
> he does have a larval-stage mullet.
> 
> honestly reddick and noodles strike me as the most likely to annoy on a flight. maaybe moss.
> 
> with his singing.
> 
> exactly. coco maybe?
> 
> i’ll bet coco is the one throwing wadded-up napkins at moss and yelling at him to stfu already with the merle haggard.
> 
> redd i’ll bet is plugged into his camo ipad watching game of arms (the arm-wrestling show) and maybe making comments out loud that make lowrie roll his eyes.
> 
> hahaha. my thoughts too. omg barton. and he sucks, so the team wouldn’t be as reserved about throwing his ass off.
> 
> omg. he’s the one snoring so loud sonny can’t hear himself plotting his death. 
> 
> hahaha. doolittle might be hated because he’s viewed as overly intelligent and an elitist.
> 
> he and otero sit together and dan pretends to care about doo’s history lessons. and sometimes doo corners sonny and drops hints about how mlb needs an out player and sonny just gives him blank, confused looks.
> 
> hahahaha


End file.
